LAUREL FAMILY. 375 



XCIX. LAURACEjE, LAUREL FAMILY. 



Spicy-aromatic trees or shrubs, the alternate simple leaves 

 (with entire margins but sometimes lobed) more or less marked 

 with minute pellucid dots ; the regular flowers with a calyx of 

 4 or 6 colored sepals imbricated in two ranks in the bud, and 

 free from the ovary; the latter is terminated by a simple 

 style and stigma, is 1-celled with a hanging ovule, and in fruit 

 becomes a berry or drupe. The stamens furnish a special 

 character, their anthers opening by uplifted valves. To this 

 family belong the classical Laurel or Bay, the Cinnamon, the 

 Camphor tree, etc. 



* Flowers perfect, in axillary panicles. 



1. PERSEA. Calyx 6-parted, persistent at the base of the berry. Stamens 12 with anthers, 



the 3 outer of which are turned outwards, 6 others inward, the remainder being 3 

 glands or sterile filaments forming an innermost row. The two proper cells of the 

 anther, with a lower and an upper chamber, make 4 compartments, each opening by 

 a valve in the manner of a trap-door. 



* * Floivers wholly or nearly dicecious, greenish-yellow ; leaves deciduous. 

 +- Anthers 1-celled and 1-valved. 



2. SASSAFRAS. Flowers in an open corymbed and peduncled cluster, with spreading 6- 



parted calyx ; sterile ones with 9 stamens in 3 rows, the filaments of the three inner 

 with a pair of yellow stalked glands on their base. Fertile flowers with 6 rudiments 

 of stamens and an ovoid ovary, becoming a drupe. 



8. LITSEA. Flowers in small lateral clustered umbels, with 6-parted deciduous calyx; 

 sterile ones with 9 similar stamens ; anthers turned inwards. Fertile flowers with 

 a globular ovary, surrounded by numerous rudiments of stamens, and becoming a 

 globular drupe or berry. 



-i- -H Anthers 1-celled and -2-valved. 



4. LINDERA. Flowers in sessile lateral clusters, with a 6-parted honey-yellow calyx ; 

 sterile ones with 9 stamens ; the inner 3 filaments lobed and glandular at base. Fer- 

 tile flowers with a globular ovary, surrounded by numerous rudiments of stamens. 

 Berry red, oval ; the stalk not thickened. 



1. PERSEA, RED BAY. (Ancient name of some Oriental tree.) 

 Leaves evergreen ; flowers greenish-white, in summer. The ALLIGATOR 

 PEAR or AVOCADO of the tropics is P. GRATfssiMA. 



P. Carolin^nsis, Nees. CAROLINA RED BAY. Tree or large shrub, in 

 low grounds, from Del. , S. ; hoary when young, the oblong leaves soon 

 smooth above ; berries blue on a red stalk. 



2. SASSAFRAS. (The popular name of this very well-known tree.) 



S. officinale, Nees. SASSAFRAS. A fine tree, with mucilaginous yel- 

 lowish twigs and foliage, spicy bark, flowers appearing in spring with the 

 leaves ; these ovate and obovate, and some of them 3-cleft, smooth when 

 old ; fruit blue on a club-shaped, rather fleshy stalk. Sandy or sterile 

 land, Mass., W. and S. 



3. LITSEA. (Chinese name.) 



L. geniculata, Benth. & Hook. POND SPICE. Along ponds in pine 

 barrens from Va., S.; large shrub, soon smooth, with forking and diver- 



